Securities regulators are investigating a company’s $50 million cryptocurrency sale, an executive with the firm said, and people familiar with the probe said that it includes looking at whether a prominent bitcoin entrepreneur broke the law by getting involved with the company’s fundraising, the Wall Street Journal reported. The entrepreneur, Erik Voorhees, is chief executive of ShapeShift AG, a digital-asset exchange that suspected criminals have used to launder millions of dollars in allegedly ill-gotten gains, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year. Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. and abroad have looked at ShapeShift’s role in processing assets in several criminal cases. Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is probing another company that has been affiliated with Voorhees, Salt Lending Holdings Inc. The company, which loans money to people using their cryptocurrency as collateral, received a subpoena from the SEC in February seeking records related to a $50 million digital-token sale it held last year. Read more. (Subscription required.)
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